"Of course, our meeting here today is altogether informal and ex officio; still, if I gather your intention aright, you will be prepared at another time and place--say tomorrow, at Sunbridge court house--to substantiate on oath what you have just told us?"
"Most assuredly I shall."
"Perhaps you would prefer not to reveal the name of the real criminal till the whole affair can be officially investigated?"
Drelincourt did not answer for a moment or two. "Why wait till tomorrow?" he asked himself. "The time for further concealment is at an end." Then aloud: "Gentlemen, you see the real criminal, as you term him, before you!"
Both the others started to their feet, and stared at him with an amazement which for a little while bereft them of speech.
"God bless my soul!" gasped Ormsby at length, for the second time.
"You! Oh, Drelincourt!" exclaimed Sir John, in a voice broken by emotion.
"Yes, I, and I alone, am the man." He spoke in passionless, almost frigid tones, and as the words left his lips he, too, rose to his feet.
"Drelincourt, never in the whole course of my life have I been shocked as you have just shocked me," said the baronet. "I am utterly at a loss for words. I--I know not what to say." His agitation and distress were unmistakable.
"Then say nothing, Sir John, that will be the wisest course. Yes, I, and I alone, am the man," Drelincourt repeated. "But this I must add in self-justification--so far as such a deed is open to justification--that what I did was done when I could hardly be said to be answerable for my actions. From my youth I have been addicted to occasionally walking in my sleep, and it was in a fit of somnambulism that I killed my wife."